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Updated: May 13, 2026

Experimental Methods for Trapping Ions Using Microfabricated Surface Ion Traps
Published on: August 17, 2017
Direct Wigner tomography of a superconducting anharmonic oscillator
Yoni Shalibo1, Roy Resh, Ofer Fogel
1Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel.
Abstract:
The analysis of wave-packet dynamics may be greatly simplified when viewed in phase space. While harmonic oscillators are often used as a convenient platform to study wave packets, arbitrary state preparation in these systems is more challenging. Here, we demonstrate a direct measurement of the Wigner distribution of complex photon states in an anharmonic oscillator--a superconducting phase circuit, biased in the small anharmonicity regime. We apply our method on nondispersive wave packets to explicitly show phase locking in states prepared by a frequency chirp. This method requires a simple calibration, and is easily applicable in our system out to the fifth level.
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